For Sale: A Bank Heist, Modeled to Perfection

Designing the perfect bank robbery is no easy task. To pull off a large-scale heist, it takes meticulous planning, thorough research and —in the case of Ilona Gaynor— an artistic touch.

Of course, Gaynor isn’t going to actually stick up any businesses. The London-based designer’s most recent project, Under Black Carpets, simply explores what it would take to execute a perfect heist of five banks that surround the One Wilshire building in Los Angeles.

To make her plot design as accurate as possible, Gaynor spent months conducting extensive research and interviews with the LAPD, FBI, Hollywood stuntmen, escape artists and criminal attorneys. The result is a heist plan that could stump the very sources who aided her in making it. But Gaynor has no intention of seeing how well her plan would actually work. It’s art, and it’s partly for sale.

“This is 100 percent an artistic endeavor,” she explains.

In the exhibition, which is set to open at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale in September, Gaynor deconstructs her imagined robbery using scaled-down architectural models of the buildings, technical drawings, police reconstruction films and forensic software to plot exacting paths of all the people involved. All of this will act as material evidence, painting an unfinished picture for exhibit-goers about what might’ve took place during the heist.

“The audience’s role is to piece together what they think happened and fill in the void of the things that I’m not telling them,” she explains.

At its core, the project looks at the power of forensic aesthetics—the exterior, material factors like building architecture, geographical topography and even gory human remains that influence how people (or a courtroom jury) perceive a situation. Gaynor hopes that the evidence presented in Under Black Carpets will turn Hollywood heist filmography on its head by showcasing how beautifully designed a robbery can be.

“I’ve always been really disappointed in films about bank robberies,” she says. “They’re always so straightforward. There’s never anything ridiculous happening…”The goal of the heist itself is to create the most perfectly spectacular aesthetic heist imaginable.”

Judging from Gaynor’s Kickstarter film, her narrative is anything but straightforward. The scenario she crafts around the heist is complexly detailed and technically accurate, but it’s also absurd enough to be the plot of the next Coen brothers crime flick (think a plane falling from the sky, a presidential caravan gone awry, Inception-style acrobatics).

“I’m quite strict on design having the role as the plotter, as master planner, as the schemer, rather than the craftsman,” Gaynor explains. “I kind of ignore traditional, industrial product design because I’m just not interested.”

Gaynor is looking for more funding to complete her project. Depending your the level of financial assistance, you can receive a book outlining her research, customized shooting targets or even a signed piece of artwork from the exhibition. For a more detailed look at Gaynor’s heist plan, check out her Kickstarter page.